Friday, January 30, 2009

Beauty's Bag Last Night vs. This Morning

Horses at Chiron's Grove Part I: Chiron's Foxtrot


This is Chiron's Foxtrot. He's half Saddlebred, half Morgan. He is just learning how to be ridden. Obedient, flashy, engaged, smart, respectful of people. Dominant in the herd. Loves to play with babies and ponies. Chestnut with white blaze and white snip on his nose. Has a powerful, ground-covering extended trot that he can maintain for hours. I want to use him for endurance, but several people are interested in him. I'd like to see him go to Tina, who is an excellent trainer and will take good care of him. We're working out the details and hopefully can make it happen. But if that doesn't work out, I really want to ride him in the April Mud Ride, a 15-mile competitive trail ride. There are two days for that ride so I want to take two horses, and it would be great if he could be one of them.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Alex

We have a new trainer at Chiron's Grove, Alex Coyle. Alex has studied horse training with Clinton Anderson and Pat Parelli. He is an avid and highly successful Gymkhana rider, though he rides not only Western, but English and some dressage as well. He has successfully trained dozens of horses and also made his mark as somebody to go to if you want to find a mount to suit your needs. He has a knack for matching people with horses. 

Alex's stallion, Moon, is a gorgeous, well balanced, gentle registered paint champion. He is homozygous black, meaning he will never throw a red offspring. He is currently standing at stud here at Chiron's Grove.

Currently Alex is working on training our horses, but he will also be available to train other people's horses here at our training facility.

We are excited to be working with him. He has already begun whipping this place into shape and helping to stuff the barn full of hay. There is never a dull moment around him.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Missing the Children


It's one of those "long haul" times when the children are with their father for 5 days. I miss them. Marc allows phone calls only at 6:30 Thursday and Sunday nights. I keep thinking about them, though.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Poor Mustang


He's aching pretty much, according to the vet. He's very sore behind the withers, possibly from that fox-hunt where he got out of the trailer by backing underneath the butt bar and smacked his withers pretty hard. Also, he has a triceps muscle that isn't in great shape, and that is probably what Cordell found when he was shoeing him. He's on r&r for about a month. Randy (the vet) did an adjustment on his back that seemed to help his soreness on top. He massaged the sore muscle and taught me how to do some stretches.

Bad news: no riding Rocket for a while. Good news: I have other horses to ride and they will benefit.
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Monday, January 19, 2009

Isis


Isis, daughter of Scotland's Golden Moon Beam, arrived this past Thursday. Some of you remember when her sire died. We didn't know that Bella was pregnant until after he was gone. His daughter was born 4 months ago. She, like him, is  a palomino. She looks exactly like him!

Pictures to come.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Scrub-a-dub-dub, three--wha?


By the time the sun set tonight, the ducks were on a downward spiral. They drank a little, but then went back to huddling down on the ground trying to keep themselves warm under their feathers. It's hard to see a duck's feet on the cold hard snow in winter without shivering oneself. I walked over and picked one up--no objection. I carried him into the house and put him in the bathtub. He began to drink the tepid water even before I set him down on it! I went back out for the other male, and then picked up the smaller female and brought her in with her friends. Look at the water shaking around them! I could hear their claws on the bottom of the tub going clickety clickety clack as they paddled for no real reason. Their eyes were wide open, unlike when they were outside wincing. They began softly to talk to each other, little chirpish squeezebox-like caressing syllables comparing their happiness at having suddenly found themselves in Heaven.

Muscovie ducks originated near Moscow. However did they get through those harsh winters? Nature has no mercy, no commitment to making an individual of a species happy as well as able to procreate before she dies.

What about us humans? Are we like Muscovie ducks able to survive a harsh environment with misery as a daily diet and survival the best goal? Does our fate differ from country to country or habitat to habitat?

Maybe that's why so many cultures have stories about a paradise lost. Maybe we all carry a sense that at some point we will be picked up from the harsh cold that has us cringing and calling up our best resources to bear it and placed in someplace with warmth and plenty and a cessation of misery.

Many of us see death as the magic messenger that frees us and shows us the way to Paradise. Some of us strive to detach, to cease wanting, to "live in the moment," because only by taking moments one by one can we bear them at all. It's almost like we were not meant to bear life, but we must, and to survive it (as it were) we must place ourselves in blinders so that it doesn't come at us all at once. Maybe that's why we invented time, the ordering of events, so that we could bear the weight of life.

I envied the ducks today. As I carried them I realized that my mittens had gotten layered over and over with dampness from trying to water the livestock and let them drink their fill before their buckets froze over. Each layer of dampness froze without drying, until my hands were each encased in balls of ice. Oddly, my insulating ice balls were warmer than the air around me!

Not long after, a friend pulled into the driveway and got out of her car and dug right into the task of comforting our frozen friends of the outdoors. She held gates for me, helped me break hay bales open and keep track of the twine, encouraged the 4-month-old filly to follow the herd to the barn, lifted heavy buckets up high enough so that the precious water would not be kicked over before it froze into a block of ice. Our lungs hurt and our tears froze on the rims of our eyes before they had a chance to evaporate (or fall). Our chins locked us into odd word formations as the muscles in our faces stiffened. I did not expect my friend, but she came to see how we were all doing. Her presence was to me what my gentle lifting hands were to my ducks. She showed me a warmth and sustenance in her caring companionship.

Maybe that's all any of us can do. I lift ducks, my friend lifts me. I lift my children, and they someday will probably find themselves astonishingly lifting both their parents. My neighbors are grieving and I bring them home-made pasta. I have shoulder surgery and my friends feed the horses. It's all the same.

It's all about helping other beings find Paradise.


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Monday, January 5, 2009

Horse Doings


Rocket: doing five miles per day. In great shape, but gets sweaty. Needs a trim so he can cool better. We should be ready on competition day (January 24th, 25 mile competitive trail ride).

Jack: Starting to look more like an adult pony. Just too cute. Loves to play with Rocket.


Memphis: Doesn't have enough to do. I need to find a rider for her. Any small people who are good riders out there? She can carry up to 120 lbs easily and actually does fine with a little more. We had her pulling a sled the other day. She seemed to love it.  And the kids? Well, look at their faces.



Dante: Limping. Probably another abscess. He is with Cocoa over at Clark's right now.

Cocoa: Beautiful. Hasn't been worked in about a month & so has the Ali attitude again. 

Ed: Did a nice job on a trail ride the other day. Four miles mostly at a jog. What an easy horse to ride! Needed a firm hand to keep moving, though. Balked for Van.

Meg: That girl has so much potential! Loves her trail rides. Needs to work on organization such as breathing with her footfalls and keeping her middle straight when she canters (she goes all sort of diagonal and bendy when she canters). 

The rest of us:

Mikey is sleeping beside me. Has plans for the morning, wants me to wake him up at 6 when I get up. Got a new PSP game for his trip to Montreal next week. Cracked me up earlier today trying to find reasons I shouldn't stop to chat with people when I meet them out & about the world.

Danny was happy to be home but got cranky pretty quickly & maybe didn't have a good dinner because he needed one. Who knows--he's  a pre-teen and the way they take on food is jaw-dropping (for me, too). He had a smoothie & a kid cuisine. 

Lucy: tried to go on our ride today but got tired by the time we were at Magic & Alan's & Elizabeth's. She snoozed with them until I came back for her.

Shadow: actually did go along for the ride. Tried to take a short cut by going through Lewis Creek! I couldn't stop Rocket quickly enough & when I finally did & we went back poor Shadow had swum through the fast, icy, swollen creek to the side we were on, then hove himself out while I watched helplessly from the road.  His little head sticking up out of the water was one of the most touching things.... But after all he did it & was fine.

Mimoka: went home with Van. All five of her.

Midnight: doing better. Has only Shadow to play with but seems pretty happy to be dragged around and mauled by a big slobbery puppy.

We lost one duck the other day. Sad. The poor thing got locked in the grain room & I'm not sure how long it was in there.  Maybe two days. I found it only after it was weak from hunger & thirst. It was too late, though. It didn't recover & was dead by morning. I feel terrible for it.

Me: I have a cold. Going to sleep.


Mikey's funny thing today


Mikey: Mommy, why do you have to chat with people every time you stop to pick something up?
Me: Because it's good manners.
Mikey: Sulkily. Why do we have to have good manners?
Me: Because good manners are the oil of society.

Pause.

Mikey: Why does society need oil?

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